US found chemical weapons in Iraq – many are now in hands of Islamic State

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch 

 

The Times hastens to assure us that these chemical weapons do not constitute a vindication of the Bush Administration’s claims regarding Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, and that is probably true: if these weapons really did validate the Bush claims, then it would have been suicidal for the Bush Administration to have kept them a secret. On the other hand, policymakers in Washington seem bent on doing so many stupid things these days, you never know.

“The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons,” by C. J. Chivers, New York Times, October 14, 2014:

…From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Andrew T. Goldman in North Topsail Beach, N.C. In August 2008, Mr. Goldman was part of a team near Taji, Iraq, that was trying to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs. While holding a cracked shell, he noticed a strange smell.

The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.

The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003. American officials said that the actual tally of exposed troops was slightly higher, but that the government’s official count was classified.

The secrecy fit a pattern. Since the outset of the war, the scale of the United States’ encounters with chemical weapons in Iraq was neither publicly shared nor widely circulated within the military. These encounters carry worrisome implications now that the Islamic State, a Qaeda splinter group, controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.

The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds….

AFDI hits back...

Pamela Geller /Atlas Shrugs   AFDI hits back Hundreds More Bus Ads Up San Francisco NEXT Third Lawsuit Filed This Month AFDI Ads of Truth Go Nationwide https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WF3G4SUN5Z37J We are Fighting Willful Denial, Ignorance and Complicity While the Islamic State continues to conquer whole swaths of the Middle East and Boko Haram has declared a caliphate in Africa, The Obama administration and his lapdog media continue to insist the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. Madness. Where would the world be if, during WWII when the Germans were conquering whole swaths of Europe, FDR insisted that Nazism had nothing to do with Germany. We certainly would not have won, and it’s where we are headed right now. Which is why what we do is more CRITICAL now. Now more than ever. Our new campaign has made headlines around the world. We must continue to buck the forces of Islamic supremacism and their leftist lapdogs. We CANNOT do this without you. YOU make it happen. YOU are what stands between freedom and Islamic supremacism. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAUSE HERE. A lot of people talk, we DO. But we can't do it without your support. The enemy (CAIR, ISNA, Media Matters, Center for American Progress, American Muslims for Palestine have tens of millions of dollars, over the past five years - hundreds of millions.) We can't do it alone. We are suing the NYC MTA for refusing this ad: In front of the courthouse the day of our filing

Kerry: Defaming Islam is as Bad as Rape

Pamela Geller / Bare Naked Islam

While the Islamic State is conquering whole swaths of the Middle East in the cause of Islam and millions of Christians and religious minorities are being slaughtered, ethnically cleansed from the region in accordance with the sharia, the Obama administration is obsessed with ….. proselytizing for Islam.

The problem is that there is a problem in Islam, and the problem is that the enemedia, the President and his party won’t talk about the problem. Instead, they promote and advance Islam. Remember, the President of the United States warned us, “the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” in the wake of the jihad attacks on our consulate in Benghazi that led to the murder of our Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith,...

Read the whole entry »

     

• Email to a friend • Article Search •

Op-ed:

Real Conservatives...Real Issues  

A Conversation Between Craig and Diane  

By: Diane Sori and Craig Andresen (RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS)

Craig: I think it's time we have a conversation about the election coming up on November 4th. I'm seeing a lot of stuff in social media that has nothing to do with the election and it's starting to concern me that people are getting apathetic and won't go out to vote.

Diane: Yeah Craig, I know what you mean... apathy just like in 2012...and we all know how that turned out now don't we.

Craig: It seems a lot different now in 2014 than in the last midterm in 2010. In 2010 everybody on our side was on the same page, we showed up at the polls in record numbers for a midterm, and we voted on the politics and policies of Obamacare.

Diane: ObamaCare...the anything but healthcare we were promised...lie after lie being shoved down our throats by those who didn't even bother to read it before they voted on it.

Craig: It seems to me that we only have a couple of weeks left to get our side motivated and focused on the real issues. If we can do that we can turn this midterm into the 2010 midterm part 2.

Diane: I agree and to do that we need to prioritize the issues and send the social issues back where they belong...to the states where our 'Founders and Framers' intended them to go.

Craig: In 2010 we had one issue...Obamacare... and everybody was focused on it. Maybe part of the problem this time is that thanks to the liberals we have a lot more real issues to focus on. ObamaCare is still a real issue and because of the agenda being pushed with the dictators pen, the same real issues we considered with Obamacare in 2010 are still on the ballot this year. Aside from Obamacare we have a lot of other real issues to be concerned with...border security, foreign affairs, all of the Obama scandals from Fast and Furious, to Benghazi, to the IRS targeting and NSA spying...we have got a lot to focus on this time. Lets break down the REAL issues.

Diane: And let's not forget the issues of Israel and ISIS in particular or should I say al-Qaeda resurrected. Anyway, Obama did say his agenda is on the ballot so let's keep it there even if his minions don't want it there. (article continues below video)

Click on the link to hear Obama's words to that effect... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkYnghIrQrA 

 

 
Craig: Yeah but just because it's on the agenda let's not forget this is the LIBERAL agenda and Obama is not on the ballot but all of Obama's policies and politics that the liberals in Congress are pushing ARE on the ballot.

Diane: Exactly...and border security is probably one of the most critical. I mean look at what our unsecured borders have already caused us. Besides having record numbers of ILLEGALS coming in here to rape our welfare and healthcare systems and take our jobs...look at the little nasty called enterovirus they brought with them that's now ravaging our children NOT to mention the fact that the as you say "dreaded ebolas" will probably be the next thing they bring in too.

Craig: And what about the economy? Obama was supposed to fix the economy but instead he made it worse. The stock market is crashing, people's investments are disappearing, the average American's cost of living is going up while their income is coming down, and the combination of Obamacare, taxes, and regulations are making it almost impossible for small business owners...who are the backbone of our economy...to stay in business. As long as we have a Senate controlled by liberals, Harry Reid will not allow ANY of the over 350 bills sitting on his desk that would start bringing our economy back to even receive a vote. That's one of the big reasons we have to turn the Senate red. Between Obama's policies and politics, and his pen and his phone, keeping our borders open, we're screwed unless we can retake the Senate.

Diane: All true. And what's critical to me and many others is getting to the bottom of Obama's lies about Fast and Furious and Benghazi. I mean there's a possibility of Hillary running in 2016 and since she was an integral part of both, using her connection to both in November might actually help stop her from running...I mean she can try and run from ghosts but ghosts do eventually catch up.

Craig: Yeah...just because she's out of the regime and Holder's on his way out doesn't mean the problems they caused are gone.

Diane: Very true and when she left we got even more problems courtesy of John Kerry. 'Mr. Swiftboat' himself screwed up any hopes for a possible Israeli/Palestinian peace accord, and he screwed up...or should I say actually did Obama's bidding...with Iran who now is going full steam ahead with their nuclear enrichment program even after agreeing NOT to.

Craig: Yeah and you know the only thing keeping the truth from getting out on all of this is the liberal socialist controlled Senate. Think about it, the NSA spying investigation stalled by the liberal socialist Senate. The IRS targeting investigation stalled by the liberal socialist senate. Fast and Furious and Benghazi...the same thing. And if it wasn't for the liberal control of the Senate we could be putting a stop to the funding of our enemies and start standing behind our allies.

Diane: Yup, allies like Israel whom this regime delights in stabbing in the back every chance they get. Allies like Iraq where this regime lost the peace after GWB had won the war. The Iraqis were deserted by a man who now...to save political face...is engaging in some limited bombing raids on empty warehouses and long deserted ISIS training camps and killing as few of his brethren as possible.

Craig: You see these are the REAL issues that our side needs to focus on. These are the issues that are threatening our country. These are the issues that are threatening our personal security, our national security, our economy, and our position on the world stage. If we focus on these political and policy issues and elect the people on the ballot with the 'R' after their name we can start to turn this all around and take our country back. The liberals have NO strategy other than to hope we self-destruct this November like we did in 2012. The liberal key issues are all social issues and they don't even have to campaign on them because too many people supposedly on our side are doing that for them.

Diane: Boy are you right on that one. And some supposedly on our side are actually more a danger to this election than the liberals are. I mean don't you just love how some keep shoving in our faces videos claiming the sky will fall if the oh so dangerous to our country gay people are NOT stopped. I mean come on...really gay people are a danger to our country...Iran is a danger to our country...ISIS is a danger to our country...ILLEGALS are a danger to our country...Congress is a danger to country....but gay people being a danger to our country has about as much credence to it as Obama being a Christian does.
  

Craig: None of the real issues that pose a threat to our country have anything to do with the social issues that people like Wild Bill, Pastor Manning, and so many others that we see in social media seem to think are the defining issues for this election. If we're going to win this election it has to be about politics and policy and NOT a referendum on religious doctrine. All different brands of the Judeo-Christian principals put different emphasis on different aspects of the social issues, and it seems there's lot of people supposedly on our side HELL BENT on making this election all about their individual brand of religion.

Diane: So true and last time I looked God was NOT on the ballot.

Craig: Voting a straight RELIGIOUS ticket is how you elect Elders to your church board...voting a straight REPUBLICAN ticket of the names that are on your ballot is how we start taking our country back. I don't know about you but I'm sick and tired of being told that I'm not a good Conservative if I don't vote a straight ultra Christian ticket, regardless of who's on the ballot, by people like Wild Bill, Manning, Rick Warren, and so many others. They're the ones who are playing in deep LEFT field and here's why...if our 'Founders and Framers' would have wanted this country under the control of a theocracy they would have never fought a war of independence to get away from one.

Diane: How true is that and you know what...I'm sick of the ubber religious right telling me if I do NOT believe as they do and vote as they say I'm going to hell. I don't know when God appointed them the God police because I thought God and God alone was our judge and jury. I must've been asleep or out shoe shopping the day that happened. But in all seriousness, I wish people would realize that the social issues...all the social issues...ranging from the 'supposed' gay agenda, to contraceptives and abortion, to school prayer and prayers at sporting events, even to the incursion of sharia law into our courts...are state's issues alone and have NO place in a federal election. We need a RED Senate if we're ever to be able to address the social issues because a BLUE Senate NEVER will. So it's all about numbers here...putting the social issues on the back burner for now...putting a clothespin on your nose if need be...I know I have to...and pull that 'R' lever to get the needed numbers or the social issues won't amount to a hill of beans for probably generations to come, and our country will further slide into socialism tempered with islamic doctrine.

Craig: The bottom line is this...when we as Conservatives make an election about policy and politics we WIN...but every time we get distracted by the social issues we LOSE. No REAL Conservative would ever advocate a form of government so intrusive as to legislate morality and every aspect of our personal life choices because that is exactly what liberals do. The job of raising the level of morality in this country is the job of the family, the churches, and other faith based organizations. The job of strengthening our economy, our national security at home and abroad, and providing for the defense of freedom around the world and here at home, is the job of those we elect to Congress. The job of 'WE THE PEOPLE' is to see that they do so in accordance to the Constitution and to replace those who fail in that duty.

Diane: So guys if you get what Craig and I are saying here you will understand the nature of what has to be done on November 4th...pull that 'R' lever and we will start the process of taking our country back...don't pull it and 2016 won't matter at all...period.

Dhimmi Mayor Tim Leavitt @leavitt4mayor Caves to Terror Tied Hamas-CAIR, Smears War Hero General Boykin

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

The terrorist-tied Hamas group CAIR has been intimidating and bullying the Clark County 13th annual Mayor and Civic Leaders Prayer Breakfast to cancel their keynote speaker, war hero Lieutenant General William G. Boykin.

Kudos to the Clark County organizers for standing for what’s good and right, and refusing to submit to the sharia and rebuffing the thugs and goons over at the foreign agents at Hamas-CAIR.

But quisling Mayor Tim Leavitt has decided to “boycott” the Clark County 13th annual Mayors’ & Civic Leaders’ Prayer Breakfast to be held October 17, in submission to Islamic supremacist demands. Leavitt defines the term useful idiot.

But General Boykin deserves our gratitude and respect. Does Mayor Leavitt...

Read the whole entry »

     

• Email to a friend • Article Search •

STOP TRASHING OBAMA 
by COL. ROBERT F. CUNNINGHAM and
PATRICK RISHOR, The Gilmer Mirror

Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him.

Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:

First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.
First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.
First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.
First President to terminate America ’s ability to put a man in space.
First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.
First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).
First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.
First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his first five years in office.
First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.
First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening     White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.
First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.
First President to repeat the Holy Qur'an and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.
First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).
First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion. (Thank God he didn't get away with THIS one.)

How is this 'hope and change' working out for you?

Arkansas high court strikes down voter ID law

AP News via Townhall

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins.

In a decision that could have major implications in the Nov. 4 election, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that determined the law unconstitutionally added a requirement for voting.

The high court noted the Arkansas Constitution lists specific requirements to vote: that a person be a citizen of both the U.S. and Arkansas, be at least 18 years old and be lawfully registered. Anything beyond that amounts to a new requirement and is therefore unconstitutional, the court ruled.

"These four qualifications set forth in our state's constitution simply do not include any proof-of-identity requirement," the ruling said.

Arkansas is among a handful of states where voter ID requirements have been in limbo. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed new restrictions to take effect in North Carolina but blocked Wisconsin's ID requirement.

"We are thrilled that the Arkansas Supreme Court eradicated this artificial, vote-stealing law," said Holly Dickson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which had sued to strike the law down. "It was an unconstitutional barrier that has already stolen legitimate voting rights and we are thrilled to see Arkansans' voting rights restored."

Wednesday's ruling could impact political races in Arkansas, where early voting is set to begin Monday. The U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor and his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, is one of the most heated in the country, and the GOP views the seat as key in its bid to win control of that chamber.